Robocopy vs. XCopy File Copy Performance

The purpose of this review is to compare the performance of file copy operations using the Windows built-in command line file copy utilities Robocopy and XCopy. The performance test was performed on a quad-core machine with 16 GB of system memory running the Windows Server 2012 operating system. The file copy operations were performed between two identical Crucial MX300 1TB SSD drives using the same data set containing 30,000 small and medium-sized files.

The average Disk Average Request Time is better for XCopy (0.32 ms. vs. 0.59 ms.), the minimum Disk Average Request Time is better for XCopy (0.00 ms. vs. 0.10 ms.) and the maximum Disk Average Request Time is better for XCopy (1.36 ms. vs. 2.62 ms.).

Robocopy vs. XCopy - Disk Average Read Request Time

Robocopy

0.36 ms.

XCopy

0.21 ms.

Less is Better

Average: 0.28 ms.

Min: 0.00 ms.

Max: 3.05 ms.

The average Disk Average Read Request Time is better for XCopy (0.21 ms. vs. 0.36 ms.), the minimum Disk Average Read Request Time is better for XCopy (0.00 ms. vs. 0.11 ms.) and the maximum Disk Average Read Request Time is better for XCopy (0.69 ms. vs. 3.05 ms.).

Robocopy vs. XCopy - Disk Average Write Request Time

Robocopy

0.51 ms.

XCopy

0.52 ms.

Less is Better

Average: 0.52 ms.

Min: 0.00 ms.

Max: 1.69 ms.

The average Disk Average Write Request Time is better for Robocopy (0.51 ms. vs. 0.52 ms.), the minimum Disk Average Write Request Time is better for XCopy (0.00 ms. vs. 0.03 ms.) and the maximum Disk Average Write Request Time is better for Robocopy (1.54 ms. vs. 1.69 ms.).

The average CPU Usage System is better for Robocopy (13.65 % vs. 14.12 %), the minimum CPU Usage System is better for XCopy (0.00 % vs. 7.00 %) and the maximum CPU Usage System is better for XCopy (19.00 % vs. 21.00 %).

The average Process Memory Used is better for XCopy (3.93 MB vs. 5.41 MB), the minimum Process Memory Used is better for XCopy (3.66 MB vs. 5.30 MB) and the maximum Process Memory Used is better for XCopy (4.18 MB vs. 6.25 MB).